​Eaton Chapel

22 February 1909: At left the three story home was the residence of Herman Marwitz, at that time a rooming house run by Minnie Bedell LeRoux (1876-1964), widow of Victori Donascio LeRoux [See Herman Marwitz House]. Eaton Chapel dominates the center, named for Rev. Benjamin S. Eaton (1805-1871), founding rector of the Galveston Episcopal Church. Designed by Galveston architect Nicholas Clayton in the Gothic Revival Style and built in 1879, the construction was equally funded by the Ladies’ Parochial Society and Galveston philanthropist Henry Rosenberg. The structure behind the chapel is the rectory of Trinity Episcopal Church, at that time occupied by Reverend Charles S. Aves (1851-1923) and family, including medical school student at UT Galveston, Frederick Worley Aves (1886-1962), who might have been someone the author of the postcard could have encountered at UT Medical School, Galveston, where both were students.

19 March 2005: At far left the four-story annex building for the First Baptist Church stands abandoned. The church itself was built in 1905 after the 1900 storm destroyed the 1883 church, and the 1905 structure was demolished in turn and rebuilt facing 23rd to the southwest in 1958, here visible as a circular attic window of the north wing. Eaton Chapel remains virtually the same as when it was built.

23 March 2019: The annex building of the first baptist church from the 2005 image has been demolished and the footprint of the Marwitz house is filled with a basketball court. At left the circular attic window is on the north wing of the First Baptist Church of Galveston, built in 1958. Eaton Chapel fills the center of the field, while church offices and the school building connects the chapel to the church.

Postmarked: Galveston Texas; 22 February 1908
Taylor, Texas; 23 February 1908
Stamp: 1c Blue Green Ben Franklin #300

To: Miss Henrietta Morgan,
Taylor,
Texas.

Messsage:
[Front] Society sure is doing in Taylor. You had better be glad that you are a society lady instead of a student who has to study instead of running around having a good time Exams are only two weeks off now and I have to get busy if I expect to pass them I know you will have a good in Georgetown Danse one or two for me at the Mask Dance Tell Miss Stella hello for me. K. E. K. THIS IS WHERE I GO SUNDAY?
[Back] Mrs. Patric Campbell is billed to show here during exams isnt that a shame I think I will go to see her in spite of the fact. Might never have the chance to see her again.

---

K. E. K. was a student in pharmacy at the University of Texas Medical School when he wrote this card to his friends in Taylor, Texas, about 200 miles northwest of his temporary home in Galveston. He was Kenneth Edwin Krug, an only child formerly living with his father Adolph Krug, a District Clerk, and mother Eula D. Williams in Brenham, Washington County, TX, a community of about 5,000 at the time. Kenny had been listed three years earlier on a U. S. College Student database as a druggist with Theo Schirmader, and a member of the Elks living at 608 W. Alamo at Main in Brenham. The recipient of the postcard lived in Taylor, about the same size as Brenham, about 40 miles north of Austin in Central Texas; Georgetown, where the Danse was to be held, about half the size, was 20 miles west of Taylor. Brenham was about 80 southeast of Taylor, it was another 120 miles farther to Galveston with about 40,000 citizens, about half the population of Houston. These towns and cities were linked by rail, and even at the speed of trains at that time (40 mph) only a couple of hours apart at the extremes. Of course, by carriage it was quite a trip, but that mode of transportation then was mostly for local trips.

Kenny’s correspondent, Henrietta Morgan, was the eldest child of Sally Leda Pennington and Henry Julius Morgan, manager of a cotton compress in Temple, Bell County, TX. When Kenny wrote the postcards he was 20 years old and Henrietta was 17. Kenneth mentions Georgetown Danse, which he says he will miss. Young people at the time met mostly at chaperoned events, and Kenny and Henrietta may have met through the Episcopal church, maybe especially those involving dancing. Eaton Chapel was likely well known to Kenny, and he may have attended youth events there; the chapel may have been known to Henrietta as well.

Miss Stella could not be identified with certainty, but there were few unmarried women by the name of Stella on the Temple City Directory of 1909: two Stellas were “colored” and not likely to be sought out by a white man of the day; 21-year-old Stella Bivens lived only two blocks from Henrietta Morgan, but nothing further could be learned about her; 24 year old Stella Richardson lived a little further away (15 blocks across the railroad tracks), and she married Thomas Butler Potts in 1917 and lived her entire 81 years in Temple.

​Mrs. Patrice Campbell was a British actress of some fame currently touring America. She was born in 1865 as Beatrice Rose Stella Tanner, notoriously eloping with Patrick Campbell while pregnant with their son Alan “Beo” Urquhart, later having a daughter, Stella in 1886. Patrick Campbell died in 1900 in South Africa in the Boer War, and 14 years later Patrice Campbell married George Cornwallis-West, a writer and soldier who had previously been married to Jennie Jerome, mother of Winston Churchill. Patrice would later be a correspondent with George Bernard Shaw, renowned Irish playwright, and in the silent era of films she had a few roles in the 1920’s.

Henrietta’s socializing at dances may not have ended when she married Eugene Cecil Seaman in 1912 in Temple, Bell County just north of Taylor where he was Episcopal rector. Henrietta settled into the routines of the wife of an Episcopal Minister, routines which might have included a role as chaperone at dances. Eugene was the son of Sophie Seaman, a widow who ran a boarding house at 2002 Church Street in 1900 to support her four sons, and who came to Temple with Eugene before 1910. Eugene was a graduate of Sewanee, University of the South in Tennessee.

The founder of the Krug Family in Washington County was Rudolph Krug, who immigrated from Germany in about 1850 with his wife Amelia Sophie Augusta Hausler. They soon settled Texas where many immigrants from Germany came to America in the early part of the 19th century. Washington County was one of the original counties of the 1836 Republic of Texas and was well situated for immigration. The Brazos River forms the eastern boundary of the county, its earliest route of commerce connecting the area with inland portions of the state and the seaports on the Gulf of Mexico. Most heads of families made their living as farmers, but Rudolph was an educated man who became a teacher in Vine Grove, a small community of about 300 citizens in the west of the county. Rudolph and Sophie would have four daughters and two sons there: Kenny (1851), Lena (1855), Hedwig (1858), Mary (1858), Helene (1859), and Adolph (1863). When Vine Grove was bypassed by the railroad, it slowly declined as towns such as Brenham flourished, and all that remains now is an abandoned chimney near Holt Famiy Cemetery.

Rudolph’s wife Sophie Krug died in 1870 at age 44, leaving her family in the care of her husband. The Krug family was hit by tragedy on 4 July 1878 when four of its members died: Kenny (26), his wife Dora Jahn (24), Hedwig (19), and Mary (17). The details of this sad day could not be learned, but it would be unlikely that illness would have claimed them all on the same day, so perhaps they perished in an accident. Kenny’s year old son William Kenney Krug (born June 30, 1877) came under the care of his widowed grandfather, Rudolph, and two his older daughters. Rudolph died in 1891, and his remaining son Adolph was named executor to dispose of his belongings, the will specifically enumerating his gold-headed cane, watch, and most especially, his library. Rudolph was buried at Latium Cemetery near his wife and children. Adolph took over as head of family, by then married to Eula Williams, and they had only one child, Kenney Edwin Krug, our postcard author no doubt named for his dead uncle.

Kenny would graduate from UT Pharmacy School and return to Brenham and a career as a druggist. He married Myra Barnett, daughter of Esler Barnett, and they had two sons, Kenneth Edwin, Jr. (1916), and Marion Esler Krug (1919). His father Adolph moved into another house he owned at 608 W. Adams with Kenny’s mother and her sister, leaving Kenny the home he grew up in at 608 W. Alamo. Adolph died in 1925 and was buried in Prairie Lea (Brenham) Cemetery; Eula died in 1933 and was buried beside her husband. Kenny expanded his business to include a bookstore (1930), and in WWII Myra became a WPA supervisor in the Home Department, as Kenny, Jr. studied radio technology. The Krug brothers took jobs at Dow Chemical in Freeport, and Kenny, Jr.volunteered as a Lieutenant in the U. S. Army Air Corps. On his way to the European Theater his plane crashed off Guyana, and he was killed February 29, 1944.

​The other namesake to the Kenneth Krug name, William Kenneth Krug, the postcard author’s nephew, married Virginia B. Rinker in 1906 in Jefferson County, TX, and moved to Tacoma, Pierce County, WA, working first as a life insurance salesman then bookkeeper. He died in 1939; he and Virginia had no children.

Eugene Seaman and Henrietta Morgan moved to Amarillo where Eugene became Bishop of North Texas. Henrietta Morgan Seaman became a widow in 1950 with the death of her husband; she died 21 years later in Phoenix and she and her husband are buried in Llano Cemetery in Amarillo, as is their 5-year old son, Eugene Cecil Seaman, Jr. (1913-1918) and her father, Henry Julius Morgan (1863-1929).

Kenny Krug died in 1950 of pulmonary embolus and was laid to rest near his parents in Prairie Lee Cemetery in Brenham. Three years later Myra died and is buried beside him; also in Prairie Lee are his father, mother, and son Kenny, Jr.